


Life and Death

by sjhw_tolerance (mscorkill)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mscorkill/pseuds/sjhw_tolerance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The decision to zat Sam to destroy the Entity isn't the hardest decision he'll have to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life and Death

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Alli; originally posted October 2005.

LIFE AND DEATH

It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t live without her, it was that she was his life. And it wasn’t something that he had discovered in some great, cataclysmic life and death moment. Though god knows, there had been plenty of those. It had happened during the dull and mundane. During long and endlessly dull briefings, where her mere presence somehow made the atmosphere lighter. He would watch her, he could spend hours watching her, he decided. And during those rare moments, when life was simple and no one was dying, he had fallen. Hard and deep and forever. 

He had loved before, but he wasn’t sure he’d love again. She would be the last…maybe even the best. Her beauty was pure and subtle, and he knew if he told her she was beautiful, she’d laugh. She was tough and strong, but still managed to hang onto a naivety and trust that he had lost a long time ago. Her brains astounded him, and he knew he depended on her too much. But when the universe was crashing down around them, she was the one who saved his ass. Hell, saved more than just his sorry ass, she saved his life and more important, made it worth living.

Which was why, even in the depths of passion when her eyes were so dark that he could lose himself in them forever or the quiet moments afterwards when they lay together, panting and clinging as pleasure almost too intense to bear receded and contentment took its place, he was still sure he’d wake up and find it all a dream. Sometimes he did dream that she had left him and woke shaking and sick with fear only to find she was still there beside him, breathing and warm, looking like an angel as she dreamed and his clarity in those moments was so painful, for he suspected that while she could go on without him; he’d be left a shell without her, merely going through the motions of life.

Sometimes, he thought, she suspected his vulnerability and would reassure him with a tender look or touch. So many times he wanted to tell her the depth of his need for her; telling her of his love was shockingly easy, but to admit the painful need that filled his gut seemed beyond his ability with words. And when he would try, her eyes would fill with such love and understanding, he couldn’t continue, the strength of his emotions for her overwhelming him. And she would simply murmur, “I know”, her lips meeting his in the sweetest of kisses and then words didn’t matter anymore.

He sat almost motionless while machinery hummed; numbers and waveforms danced across monitors. The rhythmic ebb and flow of the ventilator taunted him. His entire life had come to this time…this place…this moment. He wasn’t going to lose her because of stupidity or neglect or even boredom. He couldn’t even claim that she had fallen gloriously in battle, if that kind of death could be considered glorious. No matter how he tried to spin it, her death would always come back to that moment when he squeezed the trigger the second time. So he guessed in the long run it didn’t matter how she had died, just that she had and he had killed her. 

Jack didn’t look up when he heard the tell-tale tiptop of high heels on the cement floor.  
“Still no change. I don't know if she ever told you this Colonel, but Sam made a living will. No extraordinary means.”

“Yeah, she told me.” He couldn’t remember now how the topic had come up, but he knew. Just as she knew about his. 

“There's no brain activity of any kind, no brain wave from either Sam or the entity. She's being kept alive entirely on life support.” He could hear the tears in the Doc’s voice and they echoed the pain in his soul. “I think it's time to let her go, sir.”

“Just give it a minute, huh?” He wasn’t sure why he asked for a minute; an hour or a day wouldn’t make any difference. Dead was dead…and he was as dead as Sam.

THE END


End file.
